Cast: Narrator- Celia Smith (The narrator symbolizes the stage manager, and the “storyteller")
Actor 1 - Mia Boggs (Actor 1 symbolizes “Method Acting”, portraying an old woman in the chorus, with a much more complex history than one would expect.)
Actor 2 - Rachel (Actor 2 symbolizes Classical Acting, portraying an unnamed lead role.)
Chorus (Chorus/Tech Crew) - Two Tech crew members played by Talon Sams and Chase Campbell. (The entire Chorus will be done in complete grayscale. Tech Crew in blacks, some with headsets. Chorus in grayscale costuming of any time period or show.)
(Curtain rises on black stage. Dim lights go up on the very center of a dark stage. Down stage right, an unlit vanity sits, unattended. Down stage left, a single rose and a thermos of tea sit, also unattended. The Narrator steps into the light, dressed all in black, with a headset on.)
Narrator: Classical acting, the Stanislavsky System, the Chekhov Technique, Method Acting, the Meisner Technique, and Practical Aesthetics. These systems form an invisible structure, an unseen foundation on which a vast majority of popular entertainment rests to this day. This structure has been carefully adapted and polished throughout the years, since before the time of William Shakespeare. Every single method can, in one way or another, be linked back to two basic forms of creating a self, a character. The two most common are the Stanislavsky System, otherwise known as method acting, and Classical Acting. (Extremely dim lights go up on stage left and right. Actors 1 and 2 take their places, actor 1 at the vanity, actor 2 on the floor with the rose and tea, sitting still. A pause is taken, and the narrator acknowledges both actors.) Ten minutes till house opens. Two very different people are preparing themselves two very different ways. In the dressing room sits a member of the chorus. She plays the role of an old woman, no more. She simply crosses the stage a few times, dressed in old rags and covered in a pound of eyeliner and powder. (A brighter light now illuminates Actor 1, face looking heavily aged, but noticeably falsified. She sits, staring into the mirror, and begins the transition.) She will spend these next twenty five minutes becoming her character, her small, insignifigant character. She has spent these past months creating a history that didn’t exist, and she takes this time to remember. The old woman’s name is Mia. That didn’t come from the script. When she was young, she danced. She played the piano. She was the perfect little girl for her father. June 25th, the stove in their house caught fire. Her feet were burned and permanently deformed; her hands were crushed when she was pinned down by a fallen beam. (Actor 1 transitions into “Mia”, slowly becoming the character ”from head to toe”) Her feet are still mildly deformed, and her knees are in bad need of replacing. Her back is hunched from years of pain and a spinal correction that never happened. Her fingers are curled, her hands always to her chest, from insecurity and arthritis. She hunches her shoulders, and her head is always down. She is a woman torn by her past, and the disappointment she thought she was to her father. She will appear as this person every time she steps on stage. (Lights go out on Actor 1) Now of course, there are different methods to method acting. One of which is to apply personal experiences to the character. During an especially emotional scene, one might remember their first time losing a pet, asking if you can hold him on the way back home, before you bury him. A character dies in the show, a character quite close to your heart. You remember the foreign feeling of a dead weight in your arms, something you were not expecting, something no amount of warning could have prepared you for. (The narrator speaks into their headset, as an aside “from” the audience.) House lights go. Ten till places. (Narrator speaks to the audience again. Brighter lights illuminate Actor 2.) Backstage, sitting behind the false proscenium, with her pot of herbal tea and a single rose given to her upon entering the theatre tonight, is our star. The entire show is centered around this one character, and, without her, well, there’s no point to this whole charade. However, she is no more important, nor less important, than the old woman preparing herself in the dressing room. She only does something a little differently. Tonight, she is immersing herself in her character. She nearly drowns herself in what is given to her. She is no longer the person she was when she entered the theatre. Classical Acting is perhaps the simplest technique in theory. It requires no fabricated backstory, but simply utter dedication. In her mind tonight, she is flipping through the pages of her script at record speed, reading between the lines, and remembering the smallest details. She will not forget her lines tonight, because she knows how her character would react to the things around her. She is confident, if the part that she plays is confident. She is a nervous wreck, if her part so calls for it. She will laugh if something is funny, not because it said to in italics in her script. Her next line will be muffled by hysterics and her sides will hurt too much to project, because it is real. Her tears during the second act will not be a result of good acting, but total immersion and transformation. She does not become her part when she steps onto the stage. By the time she steps out, the audience is just a bystander in her life. They are only catching a glimpse of the story. The rest is for her, and her alone. (Lights go up on Actors 1 & 2.) Places (Members of the tech crew go to both actors, informing them silently. Actors acknowledge them simultaneously. Tech crew runs off, and Actors 1 & 2 rise, Actor 1 as an old, decrepit woman, and Actor 2 in complete, relaxed concentration. The Narrator crosses down stage right, onto the proscenium, looking center stage. As this happens, lights go up, tech crew and chorus move across the stage in a fluid movement, chorus taking up planted positions and tech crew moving off. Actor 1, stands in the midst of the crowd, and Actor 2 stands down center stage, both dimly lit by a spot. Pause. Narrator into headphone again.) Curtain go. (Blackout)